Thoughts on International Collaborations
© HATII UofGlasgow, 2005
Library at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli
Prof Seamus Ross,
Director HATII University of Glasgow
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Humanities Advanced Technology and
Information Institute (HATII)
---Current Collaborative Projects--●
Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
http://www.dcc.ac.uk
●
PLANETS
●
© HATII UofGlasgow, 2001
http://www.planets-project.eu/
CASPAR
http://www.casparpreserves.eu/
●
DPE
http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu
●
SHAMAN
http://shaman-ip.eu/node/44
DL.org
George Service House, Humanities
Advanced Technology and Information
Institute (HATII)
[starts 1 December 08]
●
3D-COFORM
[Starts 1 December 08]
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Humanities Advanced Technology and
Information Institute (HATII)
---Example Completed Colllaborative Projects-●
DELOS (Digital Preservation Cluster)
●
AHDS Performing Arts
http://www.ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/index.htm
●
ERPANET
http://www.erpanet.org
●
© HATII UofGlasgow, 2001
http://www.delos.info
http://www.dpc.delos.info
DigiCULT
George Service House, Humanities
Advanced Technology and Information
Institute (HATII)
http://www.digicult.info
© HATII, University of Glasgow
HATII CollaborationsDomains/Countries
•
•
•
•
Libraries
Archives
Museums
Research
Institutes
• Universities
• Government
Ministries
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Australia
•
Austria
•
Belgium
•
Bulgaria
•
Canada
•
China
Czech Republic •
•
Denmark
•
Estonia
•
Finland
•
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
New Zealand
Portugal
Spain
United States
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Collaborations with over 100 institutions across 20
countries -- more than 50 of which involve partners
engaged in jointly funded projects
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Advanced Computer Systems ACS S.p.A. (IT)
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg (DE)
ARC Seibersdorf research GmbH (AT)
Asemantics S. r. l. (IT)
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (IT)
Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research
Councils (UK)
Det Kongelige Bibliotek (NL)
Engineering – Ingegneria Informatica (IT)
European Space Agency, ESRIN (IT)
FernUniversität Hagen (DE)
Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (IT)
Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (GR)
IBM Haifa Research Laboratory (IS)
IBM Nederland N.V.(NL)
Informatics University of Edinburgh (UK)
Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (FR)
International Centre for Art and New Technology in
Prague (CZ)
Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie dell’Informazione –
CNR (IT)
Koninklijke Bibliotheek (NL)
l'Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (FR)
Metaware (IT)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Microsoft Research Ltd (UK)
Ministero Per I Beni E Le Attività Culturali (IT)
Národní knihovna Ceske republiky (CZ)
Nationaal Archief (NL)
National and Capodistrian University of Athens (GR)
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (AT)
Phonogrammarchiv der Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften (AT)
Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (CH)
Statsbiblioteket (DK)
Technical University of Crete (GR)
Technische Universitaet Wien (AT)
Tessella Support Services plc (UK)
The British Library (UK)
The National Archives of England. Wales and the United
Kingdom (UK)
UKOLN, University of Bath (UK)
UNESCO (FR)
Università degli Studi di Firenze (IT)
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” (IT)
Universita' degli studi di Urbino, Istbal (IT)
Universität Duisburg-Essen (DE)
Universitat zu Koln (DE)
University of Göttingen (DE)
University of Leeds (UK)
Vilnius University Faculty of Communication (LT)
© HATII, University of Glasgow
What have we learned
●
Collaboration is HARD
●
Collaboration is FUN
●
●
●
●
●
Collaboration exposes partners to intellectual variation
that is stimulating
Collaboration means different things to different
people
Collaboration depends upon managed communication
Collaboration depends upon effective project
management
Collaboration requires that you ‘Embrace Variation’
Variation in people, methods of working, methods of reporting,
linguistic ability,
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Greed
●
●
●
In preparing the bid, when the outcome is
unknown, nearly all partners are reasonable
about effort, cost, and their requirements
In preparing a bid remember that few partners
will actually help doing the drafting
Once the Commission says that it will negotiate a
contract but says budget adjustments are
necessary
-
Nearly all partners become greedy or should I say
‘have enhanced effort and cost needs’
-
Everyone thinks they are being fair
-
Everyone has a special case
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Collaboration Channels
●
●
●
There are too many communication
channels available
There are too few communication channels
available that work at all partners and
countries
Information comes via web, wikis, email,
post, teleconference, skype-conference,
adobe-connect
- How is it documented/recorded?
-
Does everyone see it?
-
Can you find it later?
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Conference Calls
●
●
Conference calls are great and you should
use lots of them, but they should have
agendas and minutes
Approaches to calling
- Web-based tools for communication such as
megameeting and adobe connect work great
provided you do not use the video features
- Skype is useful for voice based conferencing
but some partners institutions do not allow it
- Teleconferencing is the most reliable, but it is
expensive
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Some Lessons
●
No matter what EU country your project
partners come from they will all share the
following cultural similarities with you:
-
People will think you said what is most
advantageous to them
-
What is not in writing was not said
-
What is not in writing will not happen
-
Partners expect to do the least for the most
money
© HATII, University of Glasgow
A Common Language
●
●
●
●
English is the formal language of nearly all
European projects
But, your project will have many languages
all claiming to be the formal language
including Spanglish, italglish, czechglish,
Documents written by non-native English
speakers must be copy-edited to ensure
quality of expression
Sadly this also applies to the written work
of most native English speakers now.
© HATII, University of Glasgow
LATENESS
●
-
-
Eventually nearly every Partner will be late on
some aspect of the project
-
Deliverables
-
Project Reports
-
Financial statements
But it is ‘always’ the project co-ordinators fault
in the eyes of:
-
The Commission
-
The Partners
-
The Reviewers
Folks are always late for Conference calls and
Meetings (wasting little bits of everyone’s
© HATII, University of Glasgow
time)
Financial Arrangements
●
●
●
Exchange Rate variation a problem for
some non-euro partners (or at the moment
a benefit)
Partners in some countries have difficulty
producing quality financial reports in a
timely fashion
Remember although the Commission thinks
they are paying for effort as a co-ordinator
you want to make sure you are buying from
the partners deliverables –deliverables are
the measure of all projects
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Working
●
●
●
●
●
There is great variation in what a working
day, week, month or year is
Partners from some countries seem to
always be on ‘National Holidays’, and others
just have long holiday seasons,
Effort ‘put in’ does not always equal results
output and there is cultural variation here
Effort claimed is often difficult to match
with the work some partners produce
Staff at some partners talk a lot about
working and work little
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Quality Assurance
●
●
●
●
●
Deliverables must be quality assured
Many partners do not like it when the
process shows up weaknesses in their work
Do not try to quality assure partial
deliverables
The process of quality assurance needs to
be very FORMAL in terms of documentation
and workflow
Better to be caustic internally than to let
the reviewers take your project apart
deliverable by deliverable
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Documentation
●
●
●
●
Some Partners keep time and effort data
well, but others ….
Some partners provide detailed reports
Some partners provide minimal levels of
documentation
You need to declare what software you will
use for producing reports and define the
templates at the outset
© HATII, University of Glasgow
To Do at Outset
●
●
Get a website early and keep it upto date
Define your internal collaboration and
documentation channels at the outset
●
Define QA procedures and enforce them
●
Try to work only with people you know well
●
Be clear about who is in charge early
●
Establish clear project management
practices and remember most researchers
do not understand project mangement
© HATII, University of Glasgow
Collaborative Projects: Why
Bother?
●
●
●
●
Because excellent research requires teams
Cross institutional teams have the
possibility of delivering more than single
institutional ones
European and International projects bring
intellectual vibrancy to research that leads
to innovation
Because they are challenging
© HATII, University of Glasgow